From Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

who was appointed the Son-of-God-in-power according to the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

To all those loved by God in Rome, called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world.

For God, whom I serve in my spirit by preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness that I continually remember you

and I always ask in my prayers, if perhaps now at last I may succeed in visiting you according to the will of God.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God's power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, "The righteous by faith will live."

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness,

because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened.

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones,

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.

slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents,

Although they fully know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.

Now we know that God's judgment is in accordance with truth against those who practice such things.

And do you think, whoever you are, when you judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape God's judgment?

Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know that God's kindness leads you to repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourselves in the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment is revealed!

eternal life to those who by perseverance in good works seek glory and honor and immortality,

but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, for the Jew first and also the Greek.

For there is no partiality with God.

For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law will be declared righteous.

on the day when God will judge the secrets of human hearts, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relationship to God

You who boast in the law dishonor God by transgressing the law!

For just as it is written, "the name of God is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."

And will not the physically uncircumcised man who keeps the law judge you who, despite the written code and circumcision, transgress the law?

but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit and not by the written code. This person's praise is not from people but from God.

Actually, there are many advantages. First of all, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief nullify the faithfulness of God?

Absolutely not! Let God be proven true, and every human being shown up as a liar, just as it is written: "so that you will be justified in your words and will prevail when you are judged."

But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is he? (I am speaking in human terms.)

Absolutely not! For otherwise how could God judge the world?

For if by my lie the truth of God enhances his glory, why am I still actually being judged as a sinner?

And why not say, "Let us do evil so that good may come of it"? -- as some who slander us allege that we say. (Their condemnation is deserved!)

there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God.

"There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed --

namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction,

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed.

Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles too? Yes, of the Gentiles too!

Since God is one, he will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

For if Abraham was declared righteous by the works of the law, he has something to boast about -- but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

So even David himself speaks regarding the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

(as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"). He is our father in the presence of God whom he believed -- the God who makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do.

He did not waver in unbelief about the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.

He was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do.

Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God's glory.

And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

(For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.)

But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his blood, we will be saved through him from God's wrath.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life?

Not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many!

For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.

But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to,

But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life.

For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God.

But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

But if I do what I don't want, I agree that the law is good.

For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it.

For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want!

So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me.

For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.

The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God's children.

And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ) -- if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.

For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility -- not willingly but because of God who subjected it -- in hope

that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God's children.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God's will.

And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose,

What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us.

nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed -- cut off from Christ -- for the sake of my people, my fellow countrymen,

To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, by human descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever! Amen.

It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel,

This means it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God; rather, the children of promise are counted as descendants.

even before they were born or had done anything good or bad (so that God's purpose in election would stand, not by works but by his calling) --